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Does crypto exacerbate inequality? My impression is that its new inequalities are at least *owned by new groups*. Each new token is a new inequality, an opportunity for a group that was previously often simply disenfranchised.
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Replying to @vgr and @Jer_Diamond
It’s actually a disservice to both causes to pretend to care about climate as a vehicle for pursuing aims in social justice. The real problem with crypto is not climate but that it’s a non-inclusive, inequality-exacerbating new engine of wealth (very real, despite being digital)
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I think it does. While a bunch of non-traditionals have made a bunch of money off it, most of the winners are simply from the same privileged classes. I mean... the Winkelvosses for eg. The biggest winners of crypto are those who are already the biggest winners of normal economy
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I would challenge this “most” thesis. Even if the new wealth was distributed a small fraction more fairly than previous generations of wealth, I might take this as an indicator of a positive trend.
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It’s easy to name a famous rich person who didn’t need to get richer, but don’t miss the waves of people who have gone from hopeless to... ecstatically empowered. I’d love better stats on the distribution, but they sure ain’t all Winklevai.
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I think this is an artifact of the current speculation phase, but not a defining system feature. Same as publishing incumbents dominating the early internet by using existing content in a new channel, but that advantage is eroded by the elimination of distribution costs.
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This early phase is dominated by those with access to capital and apatite for speculation, who now have a new venue for that speculation. But the defining characteristic of these systems is the elimination of returns at scale to capital, that will destroy those early advantages.
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